Damian Ortega Campo de vision/Field of vision, 2008 © Espace 315, Centre Pompidou, Paris & Galerie Kurimanzutto, Mexico
First look
Five thousand three hundred and fifty round patches of colored Plexiglas (red, yellow, blue, gray) forming by two a spherical object, suspended by steel threads, 12 meters long, 5 meters wide and high : we ” go through a stream of molecules “, perhaps constituting the” material “of a wider design ?
Second look
Damian Ortega invites us to a sensory experience, which makes us first see the multitude before seeing the essential: by a “mouse hole” arranged in the opposite wall, the image of an eye, made up of everything. Then comes the question: what is the acuteness of our “point of view” ? What do we “really” see ?
Look at history
In the foreground of the Ambassadors (1533), Hans Holbein paints an anamorphosis which can be deciphered from a single point of view: a skull on the surface of the canvas casts doubt on what the eye perceives. It is, therefore, in the very manner of painting that it arouses a disturbance of the senses, calling into question the assurance of mankind dominating the world by science and religion.
Look at our society
This installation makes explicit some of the most recent discoveries of neurosciences: shape after color, lines do not exist … As in the corporate world, our “field of vision” is different depending on where we stand, our perception of issues as well. Towards the importance of the “point of view”‘ in the assessment of a “common vision”‘ and the initiation a collective movement.